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Is Leslie Reid disappear? Pulls vanishing act? Fading to white, soon gone, back to wherever it is, as an artist, came from?

The question seems not just sensical when standing in the middle of the image in Reid's retrospective at the Carleton University Art Gallery, which display artist, who, in a fundamental way, come full circle and May soon disappear into the oblivion of his Muse.It's like looking at the picture of Dorian Gray, except that instead of declining, as well as a portrait done in Wilde's novel, Reid's paintings are returning the original form after three decades of adventures.

Reid's early pictures in the exhibition, from 1970, the abstract expressionism, color just trying to speak ever so softly through the fields, cream, especially in a large canvas from the 70's bought National Gallery of Canada in 2005.Early paintings recall the work of the late American master Mark Rothko, though Reid spurns his bold contrasts and colors instead of blending so quiet that the transitions are seamless, virtually does not exist.

What makes a masterpiece? What is the part that makes your hair stand on end, blood boil, pulse racing and your eyes wide in wonder? Why are some pictures so effective and so unapologetically and brutally authentic, that is walking in the room with them, you can feel their presence buzzing off the walls, even in front of your eyes, crossed the room to try and take them in?

This issue Thames and Hudson is trying to answer in a new book that contains contributions from dozens of artists, historians and critics about what makes a really great piece of art.Seventy submissions are richly illustrated with in-depth essays in this 300-page glossy book behemoth. Philip Pullman is getting all excited about Edouard Manet, Quentin Blake was driven to distraction by Degas, Christopher Dell (who edited the book) is bewitched by Rembrandt, and Martin Kemp (learned professor, who is not acting Spandau Ballet-er) game for the audience and plumps for the Leonardo da Vinci, in an essay of Christopher Dell estimates that the "revolutionary" interpretation of the most famous paintings in the world.